Heretofore pears have been fed to pear peeling and coring machines by orientors such as are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,144,121 and 3,797,639 issued to Lawrence H. Smith and in co-pending application Ser. No. 398,065 on Pear Orienting Apparatus filed July 14, 1982 and assigned to the assignee of this application. The latter patent and co-pending application disclose inclined delivery chutes in which some orientation takes place by differential friction on the chute between the stem-end and bulbous portion of the pear. The disclosed prior art delivery chutes feed singulated pears to an orientation cup which the delivers them to a generally conically shaped transfer cup 204. The co-pending application Ser. No. 398,065 further discloses a reciprocable contoured channel bottom shaker pan feeding at least one lifter between it and the delivery chute that is intermittently gated and is fixed in position relative to the reciprocable shaker pan motion.